Ruffians in Rome

The mafia returns to Italy’s
capital

ON AUGUST 27th the coastal
district of Rome, with a population of around 230,000, became the biggest
administrative unit in Italy to be put under direct government control because
of mobster subversion. The chairman of its council had been arrested in June,
accused of chumminess with a band of alleged gangsters who will be put on trial
in November. Prosecutors claim that they developed corrupt ties involving
politicians and officials not only in Ostia, Rome’s recreational port and
playground, but in other parts of the city too. The overall council for the
metropolis only narrowly avoided being disbanded on grounds of infiltration by
mafiosi.

For years Italians had assumed
that although Sicily and much of the south were prey to the mafia, their
beautiful capital was much less vulnerable: the last criminal syndicate to win
notoriety in Rome was the so-called Banda della Magliana in the 1970s and
1980s. Recent events have shown that comforting vision to be wrong on two
counts. Italy’s southern mafias have been quietly building stakes in the
capital’s economy, and Rome has been revealed to host an autonomous underworld
more extensive, organised and powerful than anyone knew.

In January police raided and
closed a chain of more than 20 pizzerias allegedly belonging to the Camorra, the
mafia of the southern city of Naples and its surrounding area, Campania. Since
March, three well-known restaurants in Rome have been sequestered amid claims
that they were owned by the ’Ndrangheta, a criminal group originating in
Calabria, another southern region.

Most recently, on August 20th,
members of the Casamonica family, a Roman clan accused of extortion and
loan-sharking in the capital, staged a blatant display of their wealth and
sense of impunity. For the funeral of one of their elders—a vast affair—a band
played the theme music from “The Godfather” (a gangster movie) and dropped rose
petals on a horse-drawn hearse from a helicopter.

Unsurprisingly, the event spurred
keen media interest in the Casamonicas—little of it wanted. A television camera
team that tried to film houses belonging to suspected clan associates was
assaulted, while a comedian who recorded a satirical song about the funeral
received death threats on social media.

Against this background the
central government decided to give broad new powers to the prefect, the
interior ministry’s representative in the capital, Franco Gabrielli.
Humiliatingly for local officials, Mr Gabrielli now has the authority to
intervene in areas of municipal authority vulnerable to penetration by
organised crime, including rubbish collection, park management and housing.

The move by the central
government also reflects growing doubts over the abilities of Rome’s inexperienced
mayor, Ignazio Marino. The city is in visible disarray. Rubbish bins are
overflowing, while parks often remain untended and roads potholed (though not
all, or even most, of its woes can be blamed on the mayor).

Mr Marino’s cash-strapped
administration now faces the additional challenge of having to deal with
millions of Catholic pilgrims after Pope Francis declared a Jubilee year,
starting in December.

Rome will need all the help it
can get. Whether putting it under the control of two separate officials with
overlapping responsibilities is the best way of providing it remains to be
seen. But as a former mayor, Francesco Rutelli, noted, it is not unprecedented.
Republican Rome was governed by two consuls. And it worked. Two thousand years
ago.